Just don’t mention the ‘P’ word
By NewsPress Now
The grand opening of the InspireU Children’s Discovery Center gives the community plenty to celebrate.
The Mosaic Life Care Foundation led the fundraising effort to renovate the Plymouth Building and develop an interactive experience with exhibits for families with children ages 10 and younger. In terms of fundraising and community support, the $19 million Discovery Center represents a significant accomplishment in just a few years.
The Discovery Center also received $6.5 million in local funding from the American Rescue Plan Act. Even without counting funding for ancillary street improvements, the Discovery Center accounted for 11% of the city and county’s combined pool of ARPA money.
That means the community has some skin in this game. It’s fair for St. Joseph residents to ask what they receive for a city and county decision to contribute significant funding to this project.
They get a lot. City officials and Discovery Center supporters will make the case that this facility will go a long way toward developing Downtown and making St. Joseph more attractive to young families.
This is true, but that doesn’t mean those young families will want to live here any more than Chiefs fans want to move to St. Joseph because of a four-week NFL training camp. In fact, St. Joseph can hardly get Chiefs fans to stick around for dinner.
No one has specifically said that the Discovery Center will increase population, but it was strongly implied during the fundraising stage. During meetings with the City Council, the concept was described as “a staple to bring and keep young families into town” and something for young families that are “shopping for a place to live.”
This isn’t the first time population growth has been dangled like a carrot to the community. Over the years, carnival barkers made similar promises about the casino, the prison, Triumph Foods, the Shoppes at North Village, Chiefs camp, various business parks and the city parks tax.
We built it. Did they come?
No. St. Joseph’s population fell 5% to 72,477 in the 2020 Census, compared to 2010. A 2023 estimate puts the city’s population at 70,634, meaning St. Joseph is close to falling under the 70,000 threshold for the first time in a century.
Regardless of population trends, the Discovery Center is still a great addition to St. Joseph, maybe even transformational. It’s a more enduring use of ARPA funds than many other projects. People should celebrate it but with a dose of reality about reversing decades of population loss.
We are no closer to the secret sauce for getting people to want to live here.
Let’s go Dutch
Voters approved $7.7 million in renovations to the Aquatic Center as part of a parks tax, but the City Council thought that was too much money for a pool that’s only open for three months a year.
It sounded reasonable at the time, but any elected body faces enormous risk in squelching the will of voters. Ever since that decision, the pressure has been building on a longer-term solution for St. Joseph’s pool situation.
The council has expressed an interest in partnering with the YMCA on a $15 million indoor aquatic center, but now city leaders are exploring other options. It remains to be seen who else will want to jump in the pool with the city – let alone whether a major aquatic project will cost $15 million. Then there’s the question of whether the council has the political capital to build a new pool facility along with a sports complex that could come in north of $100 million.
One thing is certain. In St. Joseph’s ongoing pool saga, City Council members resemble a reluctant dinner guest at a fine restaurant. They want to enjoy the meal, but they really, really want to go Dutch.
